D&D General How much control do DMs need?

[Clint_L]

If I know that I have an X% chance per day of a malfunction, but have no idea how many days I'll be operating my vehicle, then there's no real game there.

If I know my sword does d8 damage, but have no idea how much damage I have to inflict to win, then there's no real game there.

In both cases, it just becomes GM decision-making.

I am still having trouble conceptualizing your analogy. If you know that your sword does D8 damage but you have no idea how much damage you have to do to win, isn't the game (in this case) about inflicting as much damage as possible while surviving long enough to win? For me, not knowing the optimal solution to the problem is fun. Otherwise, it's just math - why even run the encounter?

You write that "a good RPG has a resolution mechanic for everything." The problem I see here is that having a resolution mechanic for everything is only possible if the resolution mechanic is so general that everything essentially becomes interpretive.

So let's take Dread, which I love. There is one resolution mechanic: either you can pull a Jenga block, or you can't. The game definitely has a resolution mechanic for everything. But what does that mechanic mean, and how should it be applied? Does successfully pulling the block mean that you defeated this enemy, or just that you staved off death a bit longer? Does it mean that you made it to the top of the cliff, or that you made it halfway; pull again? Everything basically comes down to DM fiat, decided in the moment: "okay, you want to climb to safety? Let's say...pull one block to make it to the ledge halfway up, but if you want to keep going you will have to pull again, and that tower is getting pretty wobbly..."

This broad resolution mechanic covers every situation and makes for great story-based TTRPG. But what it lacks is crunchy problem solving. D&D arguably has a resolution mechanic for every situation ("Make a skill check...") but these are often vague and potentially unsatisfying, depending on how good the DM and/or players are in the moment (Matt Mercer can make high entertainment out of a skill check; I usually cannot). However, D&D does offer much more specific rules for other situations, combat in particular, and this allows players to do a lot of crunchy problem solving. They don't just have a d8 sword, they have various other skills, abilities, spells, and so on that they can apply to an unexpected situation to solve their problem. This is similar to your second Traveller example.

Are Traveller or D&D badly designed because their play space is so vast that they can't have a detailed resolution mechanic for every situation? Or is it good design in the sense that it offers "crunchy gaminess" in some situations while defaulting to whatever the DM can come up with in others, and assumes that human intelligence and imagination is likely to come up with something better than the rules can cover, thus preserving that vast play space?

Where this thread started was an exploration of, essentially, whether D&D design relies too heavily on the referee rather than making better use of the other brains at the table. We are now wandering towards a discussion of the degree of rule crunch that is compatible with good RPG design, though these are related issues. I disagree with the notion that there is an optimal solution; this is going to come down to subjective taste and experience.

Subjectively, I am more and more keen on playing a style of RPG that allows for maximum player agency to the degree that they desire it. As a natural DM, I pretty much always have story ideas percolating and am more than willing to assert narrative control. Too willing, perhaps.

Edit: a lot of you guys know more than me, so if I misinterpret or misrepresent you, it is unintentional and please correct me. I have lots of ideas, but I am nowhere near the expert that, say @loverdrive is. I tend to be a broad but somewhat shallow thinker.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

No D&D version  require ad-hoc game-design. It require however a lot of judgement calls with regard to what should be the outcome of various situations. Many people by their own preference decide they want to make rules for themselves to help them make such judgement calls, or as a medium to communicate a piece of their mind to the players so they can better predict the outcome of actions they take, and make more informed decissions. It is hence a matter of choice.

Similarly fate do also require judgment calls. For instance do experienced sailor in a world filled with pirates help with shooting someone in the face? And there are clearly room for and people interested in making new rules on top of that system as well.

I think the qualitative difference between fate and D&D doesn't lie in if new rules are  required or the absence or presence of a need for a clear system for how to make judgment calls for things rules don't cover. I think is that the qualitative difference is that those situations that do require judgment calls in D&D are of a kind that it is easier to make rules for that have similar "shape" as the existing rules. Hence making new rules are both more inviting, and it is easier to view the system as flawed when you recognize how easy it is to find such "gaps" that is easily filled by rules.

However having judgment calls that that is easy to fill with rules doesn't mean that the game is harder to judge or give more "power" to the judge, than a game where the judgment calls is of a type that is not easily filled by rules. Indeed it might be harder to make good judgment calls when they have to be done in relation to an all-encompasing abstract rules framework rather than just relying on your everyday experience as a human being.

Go to @pemerton's recent 'granularity thread' An example where granular resolution based on setting => situation didn't work and explain to me how you adjudicate his RM situation without making up new rules, like actual procedural rules just like the ones that are in the published book. This is FUNDAMENTALLY different from simply making up fiction in Dungeon World, which is a PROCESS DESCRIBED BY the rules. Yes, players in any game can try to argue that feature/attribute X is going to give them a bonus to do Y. That doesn't change the facts laid out in my previous sentence! This is a true qualitative difference. I agree, you make stuff up in all RPGs, and there MUST logically thus be some sort of judgment exercised in deciding "what am I going to say now?" Again, that mere fact does not erase the differences between systems.

I also don't understand your statement about D&D and easier to make rules of the same shape... Assuming you DO make rules in, say Dungeon World, it is incredibly simple to do so, as the only kind you can really make are new moves (you could create entire new playbooks, but that's just basically a book full of moves). I mean, I guess you could add keywords? Its hard to imagine that new rules could be easier to fit in with what already exists than that!

 

[pemerton]

a lot of you guys know more than me, so if I misinterpret or misrepresent you, it is unintentional and please correct me. I have lots of ideas, but I am nowhere near the expert that, say @loverdrive is. I tend to be a broad but somewhat shallow thinker.

I don't find your post shallow. But I do see some of what you're talking about differently.

I am still having trouble conceptualizing your analogy. If you know that your sword does D8 damage but you have no idea how much damage you have to do to win, isn't the game (in this case) about inflicting as much damage as possible while surviving long enough to win? For me, not knowing the optimal solution to the problem is fun. Otherwise, it's just math - why even run the encounter?

Is chess just maths? Is poker just maths? (I mean, everyone knows all the possible combinations of hands drawn from a deck of 52 cards.)

There is a difference between (i) "not knowing the optimal solution" in advance of play - which is true for many game players much of the time - and (ii) "not knowing the optimal solution" at any moment of play - which is true for some game players some of the time - and (iii) having the whole parameter of play be established in an unknown and (at least in principle) unknowable fashion. @loverdrive's exaggerated example of this is the GM who establishes the regiment of angry tarrasques just around the corner. But while that is an exaggeration, I've read dozens, probably hundreds, of posts over the years in which RPG play goes awry because of problems in establishing the adversity.

This is part of the reason loverdrive is saying that these RPGs (with post-DL D&D as the poster child, but not the only example) are not complete games.

In the context of your thread topic, one standard solution that is put forward is for the GM to exercise more control - over consequences, over dice rolls ("fudging"), etc. Which comes back to my Classic Traveller example: to create a playable game out of the rules it gives me for onworld exploration, I have to draw a map that relates the installation the PCs are searching for to the dome. At which point the game play becomes trivial - I've done all the work in drawing the map! The contrast with the evasion from the starship is marked - that outcome wasn't predetermined by decisions I made as GM, and it was exciting game play to play out.

As I posted upthread, I believe that there are versions of D&D that are not so vulnerable to loverdrive's criticism: classic D&D dungeon exploration, which uses monsters-by-level tables, plus rigorous mapping and keying, to parameterise the value of a sword; and 4e D&D, which uses a tight correlation between encounter difficulty, XP earned, XP per level, and treasure parcels per level, to parameterise the value of a sword. (There can be wonkiness in classic D&D - we can see that in, say, the 1977 Monster Manual which is a type of record of the GM-vs-player arms race in relation to creatures like ear seekers, rot grubs, the various slimes and oozes, and so on; and there are aspects of 4e D&D where the maths strains or even breaks; but mostly they do the job of providing parametrised game play.)

You write that "a good RPG has a resolution mechanic for everything." The problem I see here is that having a resolution mechanic for everything is only possible if the resolution mechanic is so general that everything essentially becomes interpretive.

So let's take Dread, which I love. There is one resolution mechanic: either you can pull a Jenga block, or you can't. The game definitely has a resolution mechanic for everything. But what does that mechanic mean, and how should it be applied? Does successfully pulling the block mean that you defeated this enemy, or just that you staved off death a bit longer? Does it mean that you made it to the top of the cliff, or that you made it halfway; pull again? Everything basically comes down to DM fiat, decided in the moment: "okay, you want to climb to safety? Let's say...pull one block to make it to the ledge halfway up, but if you want to keep going you will have to pull again, and that tower is getting pretty wobbly..."

This broad resolution mechanic covers every situation and makes for great story-based TTRPG. But what it lacks is crunchy problem solving.

There's a lot of design space between Dread and (say) Rolemaster. And between the Marvel Heroic RP rules for sorcery, and the traditional D&D approach to spells and spell casting. Differences of intricacy, and difference in relation to the fiction.

Dungeon World doesn't have a "universal" resolution system like (say) MHRP does, or like 4e D&D does outside of combat (ie skill challenges). But it does have a rule that covers everything: every time a player declares an action for their PC, either it triggers a player-side move (which is resolved via the appropriate mechanical process) or it triggers a GM move (which is an addition to the fiction in accordance with the principles, typically a soft move but under the relevant circumstances a hard move). You can't just drop that DW rule into Classic Traveller onworld exploration and expect it to work, though. I mean, sure, the Traveller referee can make soft moves, but the system doesn't give the players the right player-side moves to respond (eg there is no When you push on towards your destination in your ATV, over unknown country move). So it just becomes the GM talking to themself. Which is not very satisfying game play!

Intricacy of elements - like D&D spells, say - won't prevent this issue arising. Say the PCs are trying to escape pursuers. The wizard casts Transmute Rock to Mud on the ground behind them. How much does this slow down the pursuers? Does it help the PCs escape? The problem is that most versions of D&D don't have a player-side When you create an obstacle to prevent pursuit move - so the players declare the casting of the spell, and all the GM can do is decide what to narrate next. Where's the game play? What difference has it made that the players cast the spell. (Contrast, again, classic D&D which does have a When you create an obstacle to prevent pursuit move, although of course it doesn't use the PbtA nomenclature - but it's there in the evasion rules; or 4e D&D, which does have rules for integrating the spell casting into skill challenge resolution.)

The fact that rules systems require interpretation of consequences, or decisions about framing (your question about how many checks to get to the top of the cliff) isn't an objection, I don't think. It doesn't distinguish D&D, which has no canonical answer to that question either (in some systems it depends on how high the cliff is, which is a matter of GM decision-making; in AD&D the PHB and DMG contradict one another on this issue). And the correct answer should come from the games principles. Burning Wheel, for instance, addresses this stuff head-on and so does Apocalypse World. Prince Valiant is pretty good about it to. In terms of the thread topic, there is no reason why the GM needs to be the sole voice that contributes to this, although in a typical RPG they will probably have the last word. In Torchbearer, for instance, it is explicitly stated that the players and GM negotiate over the consequences of a conflict. And consequences are something that I informally discuss with my players all the time.

Likewise framing. Should it take one or two checks (or pulls, or . . .) to get to the top of the cliff? Should that be an automatic success? It depends on what's at stake! And players as much as GMs can help establish that.

Of course, if the only reason the players want their PCs to get to the top of the cliff is because they're following a GM hook that told them to do so, then it gets trickier, but then a GM who runs that sort of GM-driven game has chosen to take on responsibility for making that sort of decision.

D&D arguably has a resolution mechanic for every situation ("Make a skill check...") but these are often vague and potentially unsatisfying, depending on how good the DM and/or players are in the moment (Matt Mercer can make high entertainment out of a skill check; I usually cannot).

For me, this goes back to my remark about why you can't just drop the DW rule into Classic Traveller and expect it to work: Classic Traveller (when it comes to onworld exploration) just doesn't have the right suite of player-side moves.

In the context of 5e D&D, the default player-side move is Make an ability check. What is the difficulty? What are the stakes? What are the consequences for failure? All these things are normally under the GM's control, and often are kept secret from the player. If I was playing 5e D&D and wanted to make my play more satisfying, I would look at ways of changing these things. For instance, I might adopt a default DC for skill checks (say, 10+half-level), with one possible consequence for failure being a stepping up the DC of the follow-on check by 5. I would probably also look to be more open about what's at stake - so a check is only called for when someone wants something out of the situation that the adversity in the situation (be that animate or inanimate force) doesn't want to give them.

In general, I don't see the issue as being one of providing more "entertainment", but rather providing more game play.

D&D does offer much more specific rules for other situations, combat in particular, and this allows players to do a lot of crunchy problem solving. They don't just have a d8 sword, they have various other skills, abilities, spells, and so on that they can apply to an unexpected situation to solve their problem.

Yes and no: see what I've said above about tarrasque regiments, and about Transmute Rock to Mud.

Are Traveller or D&D badly designed because their play space is so vast that they can't have a detailed resolution mechanic for every situation? Or is it good design in the sense that it offers "crunchy gaminess" in some situations while defaulting to whatever the DM can come up with in others, and assumes that human intelligence and imagination is likely to come up with something better than the rules can cover, thus preserving that vast play space?

I don't think Classic Traveller is badly designed in general. It has excellent player-facing moves for many core activities - travelling between worlds, buying and selling goods, dealing with bureaucracy, working in vacc suits, calling down fire from orbit, etc. It's one big gap that I've found is onworld exploration.

And I don't think there's any particular tension between "crunchy gaminess" and universal resolution. I think MHPR and Torchbearer - in many ways pretty different games - offer both. I don't know it very well, but I think BitD does also.

I don't think the features of D&D that @loverdrive is criticising are there because of a design necessity. I think they're a design choice. I think the overwhelmingly popular way of playing D&D, at least since the mid-80s, is an approach in which the GM is almost all of the game: the setting, the situation, the framing, the consequences. Combat is something of an exception; some dungeon crawling sometimes is too. But I think most RPGers don't want the sort of game play in which the GM is not almost all of the game.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I played Shadowrun Anarchy once that has a similar play style. I hated it.

Why?

Because it got stupid. People trying to one up each other or take plot shortcuts etc.

We agreed after that to just run it like a normal RPG.

So, would you say that this is an issue with the rules failing to prohibit bad-faith behavior, or an issue with the players engaging in bad-faith behavior despite knowing that such behavior is deleterious to the game?

No D&D version  require ad-hoc game-design.

I would argue this is...at the very least making too strong a case for the early editions of D&D. That's why people speak of it as a "toolkit" rather a lot, seeing it as being intended for the DM to legitimately make their own rules, on the regular, as one of the main purposes of play. This has, of course, not been maintained in later editions, for a variety of reasons. It might not be to-the-hilt true that you ABSOLUTELY HAVE to engage in ad-hoc game design...but it was designed expecting that you'd do so.

It require however a lot of judgement calls with regard to what should be the outcome of various situations. Many people by their own preference decide they want to make rules for themselves to help them make such judgement calls, or as a medium to communicate a piece of their mind to the players so they can better predict the outcome of actions they take, and make more informed decissions. It is hence a matter of choice.

Again, I would disagree, because there can be (and, historically, were) editions where this was expected of the DM. The DM could choose to do so, in exactly the same way as the DM can choose to run D&D without ever having a single combat at all, but you'd be clearly running counter to the designed purpose of the game by doing so.

I guess what I'm saying is, "require" has a softer meaning here than you seem to think. With the hard meaning you appear to be using, well, nothing whatsoever is "required" by playing any game ever, because you can always choose to just...not do any particular thing. It's much like the problem with asking about whether any particular piece of game design is "necessary"--in the hardest meaning of that term, literally nothing is "necessary" for game design, everything is contingent to some degree.

Similarly fate do also require judgment calls. For instance do experienced sailor in a world filled with pirates help with shooting someone in the face? And there are clearly room for and people interested in making new rules on top of that system as well.

I don't really understand your point here. Of course judgment calls are required...that's literally what others have been arguing.

I think the qualitative difference between fate and D&D doesn't lie in if new rules are  required or the absence or presence of a need for a clear system for how to make judgment calls for things rules don't cover. I think is that the qualitative difference is that those situations that do require judgment calls in D&D are of a kind that it is easier to make rules for that have similar "shape" as the existing rules. Hence making new rules are both more inviting, and it is easier to view the system as flawed when you recognize how easy it is to find such "gaps" that is easily filled by rules.

Personally, I would argue the difference is something else. That is, "gaps" in D&D usually come from trying to aim for a critical mass of discrete rules, while "gaps" in Fate and similar games come from being unsure exactly how best to apply the small set of nearly-universal rules. Analogically, D&D builds with bricks, but some bricks may be structurally weak or even simply never placed at all, leaving holes in the walls of the house. By comparison, Fate builds with cement, which can be shaped into whatever form you like, but requires you to always shape it and hold it in place long enough for it to set, meaning you may find weak points due to how you shaped it previously.

Also, I personally have no idea what you mean by "situations that do require judgment calls in D&D are of a kind that it is easier to make rules for that have similar 'shape' as the existing rules." That is, it sounds like the opposite of true: D&D requires that you create tailor-made solutions for each individual case, or else suspend rule-making entirely and rely only on ad-hoc judgments aka "rulings." (Noting, of course, that ad-hoc judgments--"rulings"--which become consistent precedent are actually tailor-made solutions--"rules"--just ones not thought of as such when they were created.)

However having judgment calls that that is easy to fill with rules doesn't mean that the game is harder to judge or give more "power" to the judge, than a game where the judgment calls is of a type that is not easily filled by rules. Indeed it might be harder to make good judgment calls when they have to be done in relation to an all-encompasing abstract rules framework rather than just relying on your everyday experience as a human being.

I don't think I understand your point here. A well-designed "all-encompassing abstract rules framework" as you say (noting that I use "framework" somewhat differently) should be much easier for allowing judgment based on "your everyday experience as a human being." Because discrete rules do nothing more nor less than what they say they do, even if that requires irrational consequences. Abstract rules already have to be applied via concrete things, which "your everyday experience" is a perfectly fine example.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I am making no comment on narrative low myth play one way or another. I'm saying that every game has a specific structure that is enforced somehow. If someone states something that is simply not possible given the current situation, someone has to call it out as impossible. The chandelier in an open field is obviously impossible (or at least highly improbable, 'cuz magic makes all things possible) so if someone declares they're swinging from the impossible light fixture, someone at the table is going to say no. If you say nobody would ever do that, or something else not possible, I'd call BS.

Well, yes, to put it in @clearstream's terms, there are 'constitutive rules' (where I use 'rule' loosely to include any established norm of play) that describe how play happens. Everyone agrees on that, and the whole joke of 'Calvinball' was to point out the necessity of such rules. But if your analysis stops there then how meaningful is it? All games are games is a somewhat droll observation, IMHO... My point is that Dungeon World is an exemplar of a style of design in which the rules are ALL about the process of play, and never really reference how that binds to the fiction in any quantitative way. Thus the general rule of DW works always and constantly, you would never revise it, and in fact the game will work fine if you simply call the moves "a move" and don't give them any rules at all beyond 6-, 7+, 10+

I currently play with people who sometimes try to do things that don't align with the constructs of the game. One in particular does it on a fairly regular basis. That doesn't make them a bad player, I quite enjoy playing with them. Since this is in a D&D game, as DM it may just mean they don't know how to achieve the goal they want to achieve or don't understand the scene (which may be my fault as DM). So when that happens it's a simple matter of "what are you trying to accomplish" and "can we figure out how to do that without breaking the narrative fiction of the game and the rules of the game".

Right, and that is the same in any game. DW tells the GM to 'ask questions and use the answers' and simply describes the game as a conversation between the participants at the core level. As for who decides stuff, its actually the table in PbtA games, although I think it is fair to say that usually the GM will take the lead there simply because they normally introduce the vast majority of the specific scene-by-scene fiction. Still, if the players want, they can say "no no, this seems wrong, lets figure this out."

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I read what you replied to a bit differently. While I agree players disengaged in that they don't care is a failure mode, players disengaging in that they for a period do not contribute do not need to be so. I as a player (and indeed to some extent DM) often prefer to just kick back and watch what craziness the other players come up with for extended periods of time. And I had one player that was hardly ever speaking unless prompted what combat action their character was doing, but was clearly enjoying themself and was happily meeting up to the game every week for years.

Such players as me and him might be considered "disengaged" in the same sense as a troop tactically withrawn from active battle is not "engaged" but are still keenly observing the situation for opportunities, and can change the dynamics of the battlefield by it's mere presence.

As far as I can see it is this type of players the claim was that a game where no creative responsibility is left to the players might work better than one that dictates that each player need to contribute into the creative meltingpot.

How does that work for you in games like PbtAs or other narrative games where you may need to say something in order for the game to move forward? I would think it should be possible to play something like Dungeon World. I mean, you would sometimes get dragged into a situation that related to your character, but generally if 2 of 5 players are quieter and spend a lot of time listening, it SHOULD be OK I would think.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I agree that disengaged D&D players are not good, what I am arguing is that one thing the central narrative authority (i.e. DM) offers is that you only have to care about your character and not about the larger world-building and narrative to play. Because DMing is work, and not everyone wants to do it. My spouse, for example, very much enjoys our D&D sessions, but has flat out said many times that they have no interest in every running a game.

My feeling is that Low Myth doesn't generally demand some big amount of effort from the players in terms of setting. Usually the game comes with some fairly built-in premise. So, for instance with Stonetop the premise is the PCs are inhabitants of a bronze age village in a fantasy world. During setup for play the players do go through a process that defines some of how the village is set up, like what jobs their PCs have, who their friends are, that sort of thing. Its all very structured however, so its not some big burden. I mean, even in D&D you have to make some choices, right? Beyond that, its a PbtA (Dungeon World variant really) so as stuff comes up, the players will have to respond. They MAY make up some things, but generally more through play than anything else. Its not like there are design sessions of mapping out what lies beyond the village. When you go there, that will get worked out. Probably based on what you already decided, some event rolls, and maybe you might have to answer a question now and then.

A game like Fiasco requires, IMO, more dedicated players. It's not hard to play conceptually at all, much easier than D&D, but it requires more willingness to take on that storytelling role. I think DW plays a lot like Monsterhearts, yeah? So, again, not hard to learn but I think requires more commitment to play. What am I saying? I'm having trouble expressing my core idea, which is basically that D&D can be fun with players who are into being story passengers. That's not the same as being disengaged.

I haven't played Fiasco, but my understanding of it is that it is a more intense "invent elements of the story" kind of thing than happens directly in PbtA games. Honestly, I don't know this difference with D&D. I have always gotten pretty high levels of engagement. I just go more 'gonzo' and explore what the players react positively to and do more of it. But, I haven't run a pre-written adventure in many decades...

@loverdrive I find the first example (Counterstrike) interesting because it is a video game, so it has to be tightly constrained - every option has to be programmed into the structure of the game. This is due to the limitations that the medium imposes. It seems to me that this is more analogous to a hyper-detailed boardgame. Everything you can do is determined by hard-coded rules.

But isn't the central difference between that and a TTRPG that the play space is the player's imaginations, which are (for all practical purposes) infinitely vaster? So no set of hard rules can cover every eventuality, especially when you start factoring magic and everything else. This is the main attraction of the TTRPG, isn't it - that it takes advantage of that immense play space?

One way around this is to keep the rules so basic that everything becomes storytelling and interpretation. Fiasco just has rules for story prompts but everything else is storytelling. Monsterhearts has rules that are slightly tighter, and you still make dice rolls, but still is mostly driven by narration. I like these games, but they are light on what @Snarf Zagyg has elsewhere called "crunchy gaminess."

Well, PbtA games and such lack lots of charts and tables and large numbers of quantitative descriptions of how many feet in diameter the blast radius is and whatnot, yes. The rules in DW are TIGHT though, you can carry just so much, and each time you explain how you do something by reaching into your equipment, some is likely to be used up! Surely if you run out of torches it is pretty clear things are going to get really dicey when you are 3 hours from the dungeon entrance... You have 'hold' or 'forward' (situational bonus) that can be acquired by proper deployment of gear or certain moves. You can try to shape how the fiction shapes up in various ways (like what you choose to Spout Lore about), etc. Its not 'crunch' like 4e use the power to push the guy so the rogue can backstab him and then have the warlord make said rogue do it again with an extra bonus, etc. etc. etc. crunch. Its more like there is SKILL and a kind of elegance of style there. Still, DW has plenty of heft.

Your criticism of D&D - that if it works it's because of a good DM - seems to me to be true of every TTRPG. Some of them focus more distributing the DM's job amongst the players, and I am personally finding that more enjoyable, thus this thread. I am experimenting with different ways to bring that structure into D&D. But there also seems to be an attraction to giving players quite a few rules to work their busy brains on. In Fiasco, problems are easily solved - you just say what happens and it happens. The challenge is in coming up with something fun and interesting that sparks the next person to build on the story. But games like D&D do a good job of allowing for storytelling space while also giving players more prescriptive (i.e. rules-governed) situations to solve.

I guess you absolutely should give most credit to the DM when you have a great D&D game, or any other TTRPG experience that has a referee. Isn't that just generally true? Aren't the games intentionally designed so the the quality of the game is largely up to the referees and players? Why is that bad design?

Edit: One thing that I want to continually re-emphasize is that my opinions on what is good or bad are just my opinions, and not meant as a criticism of what other people like or don't like. Personally, I have enjoyed just about every TTRPG that I have tried. I have some attachment to the D&D brand for nostalgia reasons, but mostly I play it a lot because of convenience and popularity. Dread is probably my favourite and I think the design is absolutely brilliant, but it just scratches me where I itch, so YVMV.

Yeah, I am just less sure that it requires greater player skill to play DW than 5e, for example. I don't think that's true. I am happy to acknowledge that some people will enjoy one more than the other. I am sure some GMs will handle one better than the other. I think 'trad' could be more open to linear thinking about RPGs. Like it is in some way 'more obvious'. If you were reinventing RPGs all over again, you would probably come up with something close to that style first. I'm not convinced that is the same as 'easier to play' or 'easier to master'.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

But hey, you could easily add one!

Well, Traveller is a neat game, because it does have a fairly universal resolution mechanic, at least potentially. In 1977 the possibility of intent as a unit of resolution, and the idea of putting that ahead of situation was unknown, but since we have this pretty solid universal skill system and whatnot, you can practically play Traveller like a PbtA! Just ask the player what they want to do now, and they do it, and if there's some doubt as to if they can or not, you make a skill check! Heck, use the PbtA style 3-tiered outcome. Original Traveller pretty much assumes that 8+ is success, adjudicates actions, and produces mostly binary results where both branches outcomes 'belong' to the referee, BUT I'm sure I could run it as the player deciding what outcome they want on a success, and the ref making a 'move' on a 6- and with 7-9 being a success with complications. You could probably easily enough rewrite most of the existing "here's how this skill works" rules slightly (like Vacc Suit for example).

This kind of thing perfectly solves @pemerton's planetary exploration problem too, as it all becomes low myth "we drive until we get there, or something bad happens." Seems workable to me, and I'm guessing that one or another of the various space opera type PbtA games out there is basically pretty close to that, though I have not really looked at any of them.

 

[clearstream]

Well, yes, to put it in @clearstream's terms, there are 'constitutive rules' (where I use 'rule' loosely to include any established norm of play) that describe how play happens. Everyone agrees on that, and the whole joke of 'Calvinball' was to point out the necessity of such rules. But if your analysis stops there then how meaningful is it? All games are games is a somewhat droll observation, IMHO... My point is that Dungeon World is an exemplar of a style of design in which the rules are ALL about the process of play, and never really reference how that binds to the fiction in any quantitative way. Thus the general rule of DW works always and constantly, you would never revise it, and in fact the game will work fine if you simply call the moves "a move" and don't give them any rules at all beyond 6-, 7+, 10+

That raises an interesting thought. One could see PbtA moves as regulatory rules on the premise that the preexisting activity is the conversation, and the job of the rule is to regulate the conversation (just as red lights regulate the preexisting activity of driving a car.) The constitutive rules of PbtA games are then things like Harm and Healing, which establishes a system of hit points and damage that moves can regulate. Hack and Slash then indeed does bind that to the fiction in a quantitative way, e.g. doing your damage and choosing to do +1d6 damage. Low hit point quanta are used in order to ensure that change to hit points has clear fictional impact.

Other kinds of rules include guidelines, meaning "do something like this" as opposed to "do this", and principles, which are about what we ought to do. There is a subtle distinction between narrow and wide scope principles, which comes down to whether we feel one "ought to prefer Y and do X", or "if one prefers Y, one ought to do X". It might be that when folk speak about principles as preferences, that's actually what they have in mind. I mention these because a game text like DW is replete with guidelines and principles.

I mention the above to say that I do not believe DW can work if all you have is generic "move" and 6-, 7+, 10+. Unless you assume that to imply the principle of giving momentum to the fiction? Which to enact requires additional text. Thus, coming back to your comment, PbtA moves end up being constitutive, but only because they are not generic.

 

[loverdrive]

@loverdrive I find the first example (Counterstrike) interesting because it is a video game, so it has to be tightly constrained - every option has to be programmed into the structure of the game. This is due to the limitations that the medium imposes. It seems to me that this is more analogous to a hyper-detailed boardgame. Everything you can do is determined by hard-coded rules.

The limitation of a videogame is that the rules should be possible to handle by a computer, so the "hard rules" must be written for a machine with lightning-fast computation speed and inhuman precision, but with nonexistent creative potential.

In tabletop space, "hard rules" can be written in a way to leverage the human being with brain and soul.

Take a look at Yoko Ono's Conversation Piece from Grapefruit (which, by the way, predates D&D by over a decade):

It's not a hyper-detailed boardgame, it fits on a postcard or just in my memory banks. A computer will never be able to evaluate the rules.

It still has the designer's hand influencing the process, playing it means playing Yoko Ono's game, not yours.

I guess you absolutely should give most credit to the DM when you have a great D&D game, or any other TTRPG experience that has a referee. Isn't that just generally true? Aren't the games intentionally designed so the the quality of the game is largely up to the referees and players? Why is that bad design?

No, it isn't true for any asymmetrical roleplaying game. It is true for D&D and games more-or-less like it: Pathfinder, Vampire, Shadowrun, whatever.

Apocalypse World (or Monsterhearts, both are PbtA games similar in their design, I just happen to have AW book handy), just like D&D has a player who is responsible for everything except the PCs. Unlike D&D, Apocalypse World has "hard rules" on what the GM (called MC) has to say. She has to pursue the Agenda and adhere to the Principles. A good MC follows the rules closely, a bad MC breaks them (intentionally or not).

Compare and contrast to D&D, where the difference between a good and bad DM is the ability to know when to disregard the rules.

Apocalypse World, just like D&D doesn't have one singular canonical setting. Unlike D&D, Apocalypse World states clearly and bluntly what your setting has to have in order to work with the game: it must be post-apocalyptic, apocalypse must have happened relatively recently (around 50 years ago), and it must be a dog-eat-dog world of constant scarcity. Other than that, it's up to you: maybe it's nuclear summer, maybe it's freezing nuclear winter, maybe it's a Tiberium infestation, or, maybe, it's a magical catacylsm and elves and dwarves now dwell in the ruins of the old world.

Compare and contrast to D&D that suggests a magical academy with dorms, exams and stuff as one of the official settings.

Apocalypse World is guaranteed to be Apocalypse World, and whether you enjoy the experience or not depends on your preferences. If you didn't enjoy my AW campaign, you wouldn't enjoy any of them (assuming that every MC follows the rules). If you did, the same applies to any other.

MC in Apocalypse World isn't a game designer. She is another player with an asymmetrical role, and while details and the story of each AW campaign will be different, their essence will always be the same. MC, just like the rest of the players, is nothing but a vessel for Bakers' vision.

DM in D&D makes the whole game. Your campaign will be different from mine. Because D&D is an unfinished game, it lacks the most important part of any RPG that has a dedicated game master: it lacks rules for the one single canonical way to run it, carefully crafted by the designers to be experienced by the players.

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I'm not talking about the division of power between the players and the GM.
I'm talking about the division of power between the GM and the designer. WotC chose to not have any power, to make the DM to do all the work, so they can sell their books to diametrically different people.

The entirety of the rules of D&D answer a completely meaningless question: "can a character roll high in this situation, set up by the DM, adjudicated by the DM, with the results ultimately decided by the DM".

I am still having trouble conceptualizing your analogy. If you know that your sword does D8 damage but you have no idea how much damage you have to do to win, isn't the game (in this case) about inflicting as much damage as possible while surviving long enough to win? For me, not knowing the optimal solution to the problem is fun. Otherwise, it's just math - why even run the encounter?

IIRC you are familiar with Warhammer, so I'm gonna use it as an example.

Situation A: you are playing a normal, symmetrical game of Wh40k with your buddy Bob using an agreed upon amount of points. Whether you win or lose depends on you. On your ability to make good decisions and exploit mistakes made by your opponent (assuming the game is balanced, and no codex has an overwhelming advantage over the other).

Situation B: you are playing a normal game of Wh40k, while Bob can just pull out any model and place it on the table. Whether you win or lose doesn't depend on you, you are at complete mercy of Bob. All the rules on how much shots a boltgun makes are completely meaningless. It doesn't matter, as the only determining factor is Bob's willingness to place units you've destroyed back on the table.

Situation C: you are playing a specific scenario, e.g. where Iron Hands are defending a strategical objective from waves upon waves of orks. Bob has an agreed upon budget of points he can use every turn, and while he can choose what units to field, he can't just pull out a Stompa out of his backside, as he is restricted by budget. Whether you win or lose (or, if there is no victory conditions, how long you'll be able to hold the objective) once again depends on you. It once again does matter how many shots a boltgun makes.